Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Its been a minute, that is for sure. I noticed that its been since late March that I posted last. I was still waiting on my container of household goods and car to arrive. It did! Heh! I actually received my stuff on April 1st, the car included. Things were unpacked and put in their places. Settling in to the rental house has come and gone. I had applied for an IT job with a local company at the end of March and I am STILL waiting to hear back. Yes, I have called to make sure they didn’t ‘forget’ to let me know I was hired, ::: snort :::

West Coast Haunters Con has come and gone. I did not have the booth that I intended to have. I had to cancel due to not having my belongings (read: craft supplies) to be able to make inventory. I decided it needs to wait until next year. So next year it is!
We are toying with the idea of having a temporary booth in a local vendor mall for the month of October. Possibly September and October. That is what I’m planning on for now and yes I have made a couple of things. Need to get on it though and start cranking out more stuff.

I bought a new car! I got a 2016 Ford Explorer Sport in all black. It has all the bells and whistles, minus a few un-needed whistles. If you click on The Adventures of Monster in the lower right link on the page, you will be able to see photos.

I bought and just setup today, a new standing desk for home. My back can’t do many of the office chairs, so sitting at a computer for long periods just doesn’t happen. Part of the reason I haven’t been blogging like I used to. That should change now that I can do it without whimpering or hobbling away. Yay!!! Plus, I’m not working so I have the time…ahem!

I also bought a new computer and it should arrive next week. I can get back on making the digital wallpaper for The Whimsy Attic and get the website created.

Moving day has approached. Tomorrow is the day for the movers to start packing everything up. Ruffio goes to boarding tonight, then there is a long list of To-Do’s for tonight, before the movers arrive bright and early tomorrow.
There is a LOT of ‘this before this’ on the list and my brain is swimming! I also have to make sure that I keep the pile of stuff that needs to go in my luggage, away from the movers. Since I don’t fly out until March 3rd, my last day of work is still March 1st, I will be staying in a hotel starting Friday night. I will also have to pickup the rental car tomorrow at some point.

Although I’m forgetting to breath at times, I’m still excited with a dash of nervous!

I didn’t come and check in on Halloween, bad Kimbooly, I know. I actually locked myself in the craft room for 10 hours or so. More on that in a minute. Since it has been since July that I last posted anything, time for some catching up…

I had originally planned on moving to Washington by the first week of October and renting until I found something in St. Helens, Oregon. My house was going on the market the end of August and so on. August came and we (my brother and I) found out that Fama’s Will would need to go through Probate to get a clear Title for both houses, before they can be sold. Awesome…not. Probate takes four months, better than the other option which was waiting a year. The Probate four month duration will end January 20th. I spoke with the Realtor I plan on using, and she thinks the end of November is a good time to put the house on the market, especially since closing takes 45 days or so.
The main reason I was going to rent in Washington was so that I could look for a house and be able to cash out some of my 401(b) if needed. The taxes are much higher in Oregon with Income Tax. Since it will be after the first of the year, I now plan on cashing it out BEFORE I leave Alaska and having the money that I need to move with. This does change my plans a bit in regards to working until the very end, I was doing it so that I would have 30 days of Health Insurance, but something has to give somewhere in the plan.
Now the plan is leaving by the first week of February, or there about. I still need to find a house down there…ugh. So much to do!

Now the other news. I have been going on and on about how I need to build up inventory and start an Etsy store, selling off the website, whatever. I pissed away a crap ton of time. So, I called myself out on it and bought a booth at the West Coast Haunters Convention 2016! It is the last weekend in April, so I am building up inventory and why I locked myself in The Skullery for the weekend. Matter of fact, every weekend will be spent there. My original plan was to move down to Oregon and start creating right away from the PNW for the show, slight plan change. I thought about canceling the booth, but NO, I have to stop with the excuses and just do it. Besides, the creating is therapeutic and helping me cope through after Halloween depressions.

I will be posting WIPS here and there of the WCHC inventory. The other thing on the schedule is to get The Whimsy Attic website up and running so I can get business cards done. I’m struggling with it, and have changed the Victorian Damask wallpaper I’m creating…numerous times!

I’m finding it difficult to blog again. Not that I don’t have time here and there, more like a have had a full plate. For those that have followed along or are Facebook friends with me, will know that my Fama (mother) had cancer. She passed on June 8th. The first few weeks after her passing I found myself having night time, during sleep, panic attacks. I am a very strong person, I held up the family during my Da’s cancer and passing and swung right back into it 6 months after he was gone, when Fama was diagnosed. She fought for a little over 2 years, and was only given an expiration date of 1 year.
The “I’m a strong person” statement needs to be reset to ‘I was a strong person and am now warn out’ person . I started having my own health issues months after Da was diagnosed and we believe a large majority of them are stress related, also knows as a Sympathetic Response. His passing, Wickets passing, Fama’s diagnosis, my own health problems, her passing… I’m surprised that panic attacks at night and my body rebelling are the only thing I have going on!

Now to the next set of stressors… I’m finally moving to Washington/Oregon!!! I have to sell my house, before I move and then find something down there. I plan on renting for a short time in Vancouver and then look for a house in Columbia County Oregon.

More stress!!!!! I will be back though… just might take a bit, or when I find a moment of quiet time.

Not even a week after getting back from Portland/Vancouver, I have bought my plane ticket, reserved the hotel and car rental and purchased ticket to go back to attend the West Coast Haunters Con, in Portland for May 15-17!! This will be my third year in a row going and I’m over the moon excited to see everyone again and to finally meet my Good Twin, Dawn Nickols and my Brother in Law, Jaybo!! Long story on the actual none family relation, heh.

I’m seriously thinking about getting a booth, yes I tend to do things on short notice, and sell some of my art. Either that or making stuff before I go to sell to help pay for the trip. If I make stuff for a booth at the Con, I will need to send it down to someone before hand and then arrange for anything that doesn’t sell to be shipped back. I would much rather be living down there before I have a booth, so that I can decorate it, etc. OH DECISIONS!!!!

I’m back from my trip to Vancouver/Portland. We drove around and got a better idea of what area’s I will rent in. As for buying a house, I’m liking the Columbia County region, especially the Scappoose and St. Helens area’s.
I got to tour the Michael Curry Design studio and talk about a dream job!! Yes I have talked about Laika before but Michael Curry Design felt like home. It all seemed so familiar. Not holding my breath in any way, but I will cross everything I have that I somehow get to work with them.
We had the best day ever getting to spend the day with Colleen and Byron Ohler. They drove us around Scappoose, St. Helens, and all the way up to Astoria. I saw the Goonies house, from a distance, they had the road blocked off and I didn’t feel like climbing the hill to just take a picture. We went down to the beach where the Peter Iredale is located, you can get the info on the ship here. I could not believe how fresh the ocean smelled!! I have been to the Atlantic and Pacific in California and the smell is so much cleaner in PNW compared. No fishy smell!
Here is a photo I took of Monster on the Beach with the Peter Iredale in the background:

Yes that is me when it comes to this here blog!!! Awesome news is that will be heading to Portland for vacation on the 15th and come back the 20th. I’m excited!!! Even if it rains there will at least be green! We plan on driving around and seeing the area’s. Fama wants to see where I will be when I move down. We also get to see our PNW friends, which I’m also excited about!!

I started working on some new art projects, which I’m also excited about!! I just need to figure out if I’m going to hold this as inventory or just start selling on Etsy. Decisions, decisions, decisions…

I also need to get The Whimsy Attic website built, I have put that off for soooooo long!

To catch back up… I only completed the Ghosts from A Christmas Carol but did not get Scrooge and Marley started. The display went off well anyway. Christmas came and went, as well as my Birthday, which is New Years. I’m slowly edging towards that big 50 number.

I’ve been once again struggling with the creating. I get these outstanding ideas in my head and fear of failure keeps me from The Skullery. Each time this happens I move past it faster and faster, so I’m starting to learn to deal with it and move on. I think…LOL!

One of the hurdles that I’m constantly tripping over is finding my niche. Not my genre, my niche. All the successful artists seem to have one. Unless I’m seeing this all wrong. I fight between creating what my heart sings for and makes my soul happy, and what I think people want to see and/or buy. As suggested by a good friend: create because it makes me happy and if people don’t buy it, I will be surrounded by a house full of happy that I created. 🙂 If I would stop over thinking things, I would have seen that…DOH!

Creating I will go, creating I will go, high ho the merry oh, the creating I will go!!

I’m still recovering from the surgery I had July 25th. I tell ya, I’m not a spring chicken anymore! Uff-da!! BUT, I’m getting there!! I’ve only had one gut flare up since the surgery, so hopefully that means I have a bit of a handle on what to eat and what to stay away from.

The creation bug has hit again and I think it brought friends. I’ve started on the decorations for work, have a Diorama Pumpkin in the works, along with a almost complete art doll. The decorations for work will be a haunted ghostly 8ft long (by 24″) table that I will have mainly greys, blacks, whites, with a smidge of orange. The back drop, hanging on the wall, will be two 36″ x 48″ canvas’s that I have covered in Victorian Damask fabric, that is distressed to look like failing wallpaper. I have a paper chandelier (since it is a drop ceiling I can’t have too much weight), then I am making 5, or so, Dusty Mites which are little 6″ poseable dolls to go here and there in various forms of mischief.
My brain feels better now that I’m acting on my ideas, instead of letting them all swirl around endlessly in my noggin.

Ruffio is doing great. Come November 2nd he will have been with me a year, that is when I started fostering him, but his Gotcha date is February 15th. The little stinker is coming out if his shell more and more and its awesome to be part of his transformation.

Fama is doing well. Her last CT scan showed the tumors have shrunk slightly and there are no new ones. She is going to take about a month off of the Chemo, to take a break, since she has had 11 treatments so far on this second round of Chemo, which it will be 14 total before the break starts.

Obviously Washington isn’t happening by the October 1st date that I had set. I’m spending yet another winter in Alaska, but this will be my last. I know, I said that last winter, but this time I’m much closer to wits end and for my own mental and physical health, etc., I have to put my foot down. If Fama is with us, then she can come and stay with me in Washington and then come stay with my brother here in Alaska.

I get excited about moving down to Vancouver, Wa. and then realize everything I need to do. Since I really don’t have a ‘set in stone’ date, but had originally said it would be October 1st, mainly because I DO NOT want to spend one more horrid winter in Alaska, I really need to start having garage sales and clear the clutter, before that time comes.

I am A.D.D where ideas and creativity are concerning. I can seriously be distracted by anything shiny, rusty, grungy, ghostly, etc and off I go in a totally different direction. It isn’t a bad thing, but when it comes to completing something, well… things tend to sit half finished or not started at all. I seemed to have let that creative “run amokness” spill over into my regular daily activities. Must focus grasshopper!!

As an example of my Amokness…Since recently being at West Coast Haunters Convention, I have the convention bug. I want to have a booth to sell my stuff. I don’t want just any booth though, I want it to be snazzy and eye drawing. So lately my brain is full of ideas to make a portable booth design. I already know what I kinda want it to look like but need to get the little details down. Now here is the catch… I’m all excited about making a booth but it all has to wait until I’m living IN Vancouver! Why brain, are you wasting time NOW trying to figure this out? See what I have to deal with!!?

So focus I must. I need to start a Garage Sale pile, and get rid of things that I really don’t need/want any longer. When I move I don’t plan on taking the couch or king sized mattress, that needs to be replaced anyway. There will be select pieces of large furniture and then stuff. The large portion of stuff will be the craft room. Oh lawrd, the craft room! I think I will throw out the two bookcases I have, which were freebies on craiglists, and find better ones once down there.

::: jeopardy music plays :::

Talk about focus! I just spent the last couple of hours forgetting that I was writing this blog post and went surfing around Facebook, looking at more WCHC pictures! ::: face palm :::

I’m going to try my bestest to blog more. I have got to get this thing rolling again…